[Ailist] Lost in the Crowd - NYTimes.com (power of attention

[Stephanie West Allen]

Excerpt from David Brooks column:

Most successful people also have a phenomenal ability to consciously  
focus their attention. We know from experiments with subjects as  
diverse as obsessive-compulsive disorder sufferers and Buddhist monks  
that people who can self-consciously focus attention have the power  
to rewire their brains.

Control of attention is the ultimate individual power. People who can  
do that are not prisoners of the stimuli around them. They can choose  
from the patterns in the world and lengthen their time horizons. This  
individual power leads to others. It leads to self-control, the  
ability to formulate strategies in order to resist impulses. If  
forced to choose, we would all rather our children be poor with self- 
control than rich without it.


Rest here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/opinion/16brooks.html?_r=1

Stephanie